Making It Happen

The past five years have been a major pain in the butt. There is, of course, a better word to use, but we still have regulations that limit our full freedom of speech. Not a bad thing, just a thing.

I think we need to move the argument away from print dying and changing, and realize that communications as a whole has been under attack. The attack is not going to provide defeat of the medium, but we need to bring the full pressures of the industry to bear for self/internal and exterior change—profit-based change—and reduced cost-based change.

Allowing an “old” form of communication to be replaced—or perhaps, the better word is substituted—by a new, very similar form is the goal; not the destruction of any one media. This attack has come from the fifth column, the insiders of the industry who see a new vision. The difference is, this group did not use clandestine tactics as a traditional internal, fifth-column-driven effort would have. Instead, its members came right out front and said it: CHANGE, we will make it happen, we need to make it happen.

It was how they did it that perhaps confused many. I agree that there is a new view of the field of communications and that the visionaries out there decided that to affect change, they did not need to replace or splinter the current communications model…they needed to kill it. Based on the following comment, I don’t think you can kill anything that has worth, all you can do is splinter the field and hope for the best.

Recently, the technology columnist for the New York Times provided via his column an observation that hit home. And home could be in the United States or in Malaysia; in fact, it does not matter where in the world you are.

A passionate believer in the integration of all online and offline media, inter-digital integration, unified communications, the measurement and ROMI of any marketing program based on results, Thad acts as profit advocate for his myriad of clients.

Sometimes it doesn’t splinter. We all have to take a hard look at what we are producing, the actual deliverable, to make sure that it is a product that can be followed once it does ‘splinter’ as David Pogue said. Consider the silver-based film business, or the vinyl record business… there wasn’t any splintering, just the rather quick disappearance of industry groups.

Thaddeus B. Kubis’ 4 C’s will work for you if the deliverable you currently have a market for is splintered into something you can ride your business on into the next decade. If it is a dead technology, go look for something else to do.

It will get tougher for some to make a living as we transform our economy from one based on adding value to consumables (paper; plastic) to an economy that creates value without using consumables (emails; digital downloads). That is why you have to focus on your actual deliverable and assess where the value is added.